Away from the fire
by Sporkess
Summary: Pyro has changed his mind about working with Magneto, and wants a second chance at life in the Institute. Set a few months after the end of the second movie.
1. Chapter 1

Away from the fire

Pyro has changed his mind about working with Magneto, and wants a second chance at life in the Institute. Set a few months after the end of the second movie.

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Or even much of this plot. I've seen similar (sort of) things done elsewhere.

The night is bitter, but the boy does not shiver from cold. Nor is it cold that pins him here, crouched in the shadow of a bleak stone wall as he gazes up at the building. There are no lights, there; the whole world is darkness and shadow, with no light or warmth or flame.

Cramp burns his taut legs, and at last he stands, hands holding to the rough stone as though it is the last thing holding him upright.

The doors are locked, the windows latched. He knows this without trying. But he remembers, as though from a past life, a life with laughter and friends and warm, safe metal tucked into his back pocket, the wobbly catch that will fall open if you hit the corner of the window pane just right.

He skulks through the classroom; the abandoned chairs and tables look like the skeletons of agonised death, beached bone white by the cold sharp moonlight. Into the corridor; his feet remember other such marches, filled with rebellion and shame, but never has he moved with such reluctance before.

The door; a dark patch of shadow in the dim hallway. But other doors along this hall aren't rimmed with light, like a portal to heaven, or the glitter of fool's gold. Fear freezes his hand, but desperation makes it fall, one sharp crack against the varnished walnut.

"Come in," The voice is unsurprised, almost expectant, and the ever-welcoming tone is like some dire homecoming; joy at the return, but some wistful pain at all that has been lost, like the reluctant dead after drinking from the waters of lethe.

It would once have been bravado that twisted his hand on the doorknob, but he can't afford bravado anymore. He slips inside.

"John," The Professor nods in greeting, but his forehead wrinkles slightly with concern as he waves his errant pupil towards a chair.

Johnny's eyes are wide and dark and wary, the only colour in his too thin, too pale face. He mistrusts this instant acceptance. It feels too much like the softness of spiders' silk; a beautiful, deadly trap. He sits anyway. His legs won't hold him any longer.

"I thought you had gone with Magneto, John." The Professor says this gently, without accusation. He leans back, relaxed, waiting, his book lying forgotten on the table. "Why have you come back? What happened to you?"

Once, St John was like an oil soaked torch; full of life and wit and explosive flame. But there is no fire in him now; his clothes are dirty and torn, his cheeks are hollow, and his eyes are empty and haunted.

"I've - come back, Professor," His voice, too, has lost something; it is hoarse, as though he has not spoken in a long time, and it is full of pleading instead of rebellion. "I don't want to work with Magneto any more." 


	2. Chapter 2

Away from the fire, Chapter 2

He is alone, and so cold! No softness in this cell; it is a room of rock and metal, hard planes and sharp edges. Hard enough to bruise, sharp enough to cut; flung without relief into the bare room, he knows this well. His injuries hurt even worse as another frigid breeze hisses through his window.

Helpless tears streak down his cheeks, and he bites his lip until the blood flows, just to feel the warm burn of new pain. Too quickly, even that fades from soft flame to icy sharpness.

And it's gone, it's all gone. The power; the dizzying intoxication of it, the warm-silk caress of open fire, burning in his mind. He is hollow, empty (nothing but a normal, nothing to distinguish you, nothing to make anyone look twice). It's horrible. It's why he never tried drugs; he already knows what withdrawal feels like.

His hands fumble, knotting around each other; frantic spiders, with no more web. Always, they would curl around the lighter, feel its cool-warm smoothness, feel the flicker of heat and the rush of power, saving him from the cruel cold dark. But it's gone now; they stole it, hid it, robbed him of his everything, robbed him of his own genes.

His fingers scrabble at the wall with a mad single-mindedness that drives him past sleep and despair. Past food and water - but that's not a problem. They have offered him none, not since they shut him in here. How many days ago? Two? Three?

His fingertips are blistered and bleeding, and his movements are driven by desperation, not strength. How many days has it been? Three? Four?

Another nail breaks off, with a pain that would make him cry out, were it not a breath in a hurricane compared to the inescapable agony that had become his entire existence. How many days has it been? Four? Five?

A piece of stone crumbles to the floor, and John clutches it with near-crippled fingers, holding it with the reverence deserved for the most precious of jewels. Caresses the two smoothed sides, planed flat with the hand of man, and the crumbled, jagged curved of the rest, hacked out with the claws of a half-mad mutant. He stopped trying to count the days.

He crawls over to the bars of his cell. The first touch of stone on metal grates grindingly in the ear, as John scrapes his jewel over his prison. The second touch taps dully and uncertainly, a tiny chink in the thin, cold air. The third touch carries more of need and rage then finesse, and it rings clearly, reverberating like a bell in the silence.

It was the third touch that did it; made the tiny speck of light in the darkness, a light that lit all the fires within him again. He cried out, the ecstasy even sweeter after so long without it. And then it goes, dies away and he is left with hot tears on his cheeks and a whetted craving in his soul.

The fourth touch, he uses: he grabs the spark in an instant, holding it safe in his hands, smiling like a mother with a newborn baby as it slowly, gradually grows, dancing in his palm and in his eyes. He stands, feeling strong once again, more than mortal once again, even though his body shakes from hunger and thirst.

And then he lets it go; like his angry explosions with the police who tried to take them, like his vindictive executions of Magneto's Normal prisoners. But all he throws it against is a cold stone wall, and he flees from there, fear sour in his mouth and remorse acid in his soul. 


	3. Chapter 3

Away from the fire, Chapter 3

A scent - fleshly, with an overtone of metal and electricity - hits her nose, more sensitive than most. She laces her fingers into the clefts between the stones, and starts to climb, holding on effortlessly. Her groping hands find a hole, a tiny ventilation shaft more than a window, and she lifts herself to peer over the edge.

It is quite dark, but she can see perfectly. And besides, the smell is much stronger, here. Her lip curls in hatred as she sees the man asleep on the bed. Bastard.

Spider knew that he was trying to help. But he wasn't. He alienated the Normals, damaged his own kind even as he struggled for them.

Maybe when they saw that he had been eliminated by another mutant, they would understand that the mutants were ready to go that extra mile for peace.

Stick thin arms slip in through the window, followed by an only marginally thicker body. Then her legs, then her bare feet with their abnormally long toes - she forms herself up on the floor, a creature of angles and long thin limbs. She keeps her huge eyes fixed on the slumbering man, and creeps forward.

The knife is long, and quite sharp; even as she moves, she pulls it from the sheaf strapped to her thigh. She raises it above him, taking a moment to find the most vulnerable spot, and plunges it down, to snuff out the life of the danger to both human and mutant-kind.

And then she freezes, struggling with a knife that will move neither up nor down. Her mutated eyes are not capable of tears, but she is filled with enough choking despair that she wishes they were. She lets go of the blade, and scuttles to the window. But the knife gets there first, stretching into a sharpened bar to block her desperate escape.

"Well, well." Magneto sits up, stands up, and faces her. She quailes away, pressing back into her corner. "A mutant assassin. How… original." He raises a hand; the knife flies to it, retaining its original shape. "But not a very original, or clever, attempt." His voice is sharp, cold, mocking. "Did you really think I wouldn't wake?" She curses her own lack of forethought, her lack of planning, her lack of a (God!) a plastic weapon that he couldn't control. "Who sent you?" His voice cracks like a whip.

Spider knows she must answer; silence would bring retribution on all parties, Mutant and Normal. "No one," she replies, her voice harsh, angry. "I came myself, to kill you, so the Normals would not fear us, so they would not try to persecute us, so at last we could have peace." They are both fanatics, him and her; they are simply fighting for different ends of the same side.

"Foolish child," Magneto says; it is almost a sigh. He knows he cannot be merciful, cannot let her live; blinded by her fanaticism, she will try to kill him, again and again, until one or both of them is dead. "However…" He pauses, thinking. "You might be of some use to me." He is unsure, suspicious of everyone, even those working for him. He demands loyalty, total loyalty. And there is one on his side who has not yet proved that loyalty - not enough.

"You want me to what?" Pyro is aghast. He plays with the lighter in his hands, seemingly comforted by the bright gold flame. He looks again at the mutant, huddled in her chains. Her hair is a short, spike-straggled shadow, her eyes huge, bulging, their faint glowing red dominating her face. He thinks she is tall, taller than him, but far lighter, stretched out like the spider she is named for. "I can't kill a mutant!"

"It's just the same as disposing of those Normals," Magneto says, soothingly. "She's a traitor to her own kind. She tried to kill me. Pyro, we are fighting a war. We can not afford to shrink from even this most unpleasant of duties." The lighter moves away from Pyro's restless fingers, hovering in the air. The flame glows, steady, unflickering. "It's easy, Pyro." Magneto tells him. "You've done the same sort of thing before."

The power is there, a sleeping dragon curled around his heart. Flame hovers in his hands as he looks at her. Of course, they are fighting a war. Of course, he must be ruthless. His hands tremble; he clenches his fists. The flame goes out.

"I won't do it." 


End file.
